Nuclear - future for Ireland?

French nuclear has 77% capacity factor, right here on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

and that’s on the lower end out of all the nuclear powered countries

Now on the other hand your solar in Ireland is 10% and wind is 33%

Needless to say 77 is a much larger number than 33 or 10 🤣

Intermittents do fail all at once, it's in their very nature, it's the very reason we burn so much gas. Intermittents are by far the most unreliable source of energy regularly used. Burning gas = intermittent fail.

Can you seriously not comprehend that the vast gap between the pink and other lines is intermittents failing, because that's what that is, and it's frequent.

France has 62.9 GW of nuclear capacity. I make that 551 TWh of annual generation capacity if they were all available simultaneously.

In 2025, electricity consumption amounted to 451 TWh

"As has been repeatedly pointed out, France didn’t build nuclear over-capacity, they added renewables to an existing Nuclear capability, which has resulted in overcapacity."

Oops.

Talking about something repeatedly pointed out: how many bloody times does it have to be pointed out that our future energy requirements are going to be significantly higher than at present? It's not going to be a 10 GW grid in 2050, FFS!

It's going to require 15 GW, at least. That projection from the ESB was before data centres for AI were a thing. They would easily need to generate several GW more unless they are banned.

Spitting chips at my 4-6 1.5 GW reactor proposal when the ESB is calling for 30 GW of far more expensive OSW is funny. OSW has atrocious maintenance costs. That 30 GW of offshore wind is a mirage in terms of a cost comparison with nuclear. The O&M costs of OSW are at least 25% of the initial capital cost. The longevity of the turbines is a third that of nuclear, but probably less given Irish sea states and wind strengths, so in terms of cost, It's more like 113 GW of OSW vs say 9 GW of Nuclear. (30*3*1.25)

Accusing me of being 'conservative' for proposing the greenest, most reliable, cheapest, lowest CO2 emitting source to power Irelands future grid is an accusation I'm happy to admit to. It's an ironic accusation; being a proponent of nuclear in Ireland is actually being a radical.

One thing for sure I wouldn’t trust the builders here to build it. Sure what could possibly go wrong

No need to lobby any TDs.

The present government knows the 37GW/Hydrogen plan is a none runner and are just kicking the can down the road importing ever increasing levels of nuclear from the U.K. via interconnectors and hoping to import even more nuclear via the Celtic Interconnector from France.

We were going to at best reach 23% of the 51% of reduced emissions required by 2030, and that included having Sceirde Rocks up and running. This government is not looking at 2050. They are looking at the fines that will become more evident and the questions that are going to be asked the closer we get to 2030 where the next general election has to take place before Jan 7th 2030.

They are hoping to mitigate the damage by reducing those fines by importing nuclear. We imported 14.6% of our electricity from the U.K. last year, but I cannot see that continuing. There were rumbling from the U.K. last year on it being a one way street, and with the U.K. being a major net importer itself, and a possibility that their imports from Norway may be curtailed by Norway. Or completely cut. I can see that 14.6% only going one way. And it`s not upwards. That leaves the Celtic Interconnector with France, but it has only a 700MW capacity.

This government`s only plan is to get through the 2030 general election and hold on to office. They played along with the Green Party in the last government to stop the Green Party throwing a hissy fit and walking, but don`t make the mistake of believing they do not know that this 37GW/Hydrogen plan is not totally financially unfeasible. If I can do the relatively simple mathematics off the costs, then Eirgrid has also done the same long ago and let them know.

As to those interconnectors, do you remember how the greens were telling us we would be exporting that goldmine of wind power from our West Coast offshore floating wind turbines ? Yeah, that was a big fat lie. Where we are concerned, they are only going to be flowing in one direction.

It`s ironic that Germany for years had been telling France how misguided they were using nuclear and also spent years attempting to block nuclear as an E.U. transition source of electricity while encouraging E.U. countries to use Putin`s gas.

It`s not been just French nuclear they have become dependent on, it`s also Swedish nuclear. Sweden has become very annoyed at Germany draining their nuclear generation resulting in high prices for consumers in Sweden. They are especially ticked off that when Germany`s support of Putin`s gas bit them and the rest of the E.U in the ass, Germany shut down their own remaining nuclear plants.

June 2024 Sweden rejected the Hansa PowerBridge. A proposed 700MW subsea power cable to Germany based on concerns that connecting to Germany`s "ineffective" market would add further high prices for Swedish consumers. Sweden has also threatened this month to restrict electricity exports to Germany over the E.U. congested revenues policy where 25% of Swedish internal congested revenue would go towards providing such power cables.

Not long ago the E.U. were attempting to kill off nuclear generation and Germany was being held up to us by green as the example we needed to follow. But as the old saying goes, when money talks, bullshine walks.

Post upon post upon post of stats and speculation of how nuclear is no way comparable to whatever it is you are proposing and still nothing on what it is you are actually proposing or at what cost.

Could that be because you know whatever it is you favor is neither feasible or financially affordable ?

Wrong again. We know you hate the sun, we got the memo years ago. Don't lie though that solar is near pointless.

Industry, retail and domestic are doing solar or solar plus batteries and getting results. My small system has generated 8.3 MWh in 3 years. I regularly take little or no day rate because battery. I could automate it to avoid peak usage too, peak that would be gas generated even if we had baseline nuclear already.

What I've described is customer side too. No additional ESB or Eirgrid infrastructure required.

It is high time you got a solar install at your house so you can see for yourself.

Congrats on your solar made with Uyghur slave labour.

How is a comment about slavery childish?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636

You don't want to be confronted with the unpleasant truth and are lashing out with the first facile retort that pops into your head.

Your first and third "problems" are essentially the same in that you have provided nothing as to how much this 37GW/Hydrogen plan would cost to implement. Or how much the consumer would end up paying for electricity for a plan that would not even fulfill our 2050 requirements on any level. Yet this is the plan you want to keep throwing money at based on nothing other than blind faith in an Irish Green Party ideology where you have been shown time upon time that nuclear would do the job for half the cost or less.

Not surprising economically where you think that not having an indexed linked contract for electricity over the lifespan of a nuclear plant is sound business sense compared to three such contracts over the same period for what you favor. Any business would take your arm off for an indexed linked contract that guarantees them a fixed price for the materials they need to operate for 60 years.

Your second "problem" is a doozie alright. Especially when you keep blather on about nuclear capacity factors when you have been shown that half U.K. offshore wind farms could not make it past 35% and your bogeyman nuclear Hinkley C at 50% capacity would generate cheaper electricity than Empire 1 or indeed the Hai-Long wind farm without including inflation for their relative capital costs.

Nuclear can provide it`s own spinning reserves, and can ramp up or down by 5% a minute. You cannot ramp up renewables and they cannot provide a dependable baseload due to them being intermittent. Why do you think French renewable companies look to buy 130+ TWh French nuclear each year ?

I`ll give you a hint. It`s not to export.